*Editor’s Note* – When Colorado decided to effectively ban every method to legally harvest black bears, with the exception of one man and one rifle, we warned the public and officials that when social demands, orchestrated by the environmentalists, remove the tools necessary for wildlife managers to control wild animal populations, problems like those now appearing in Colorado would persist.

This is the same message that many of us sent to voters in Maine who, thankfully, opted not to do away with the hunting and trapping tools needed to keep bears in check. Now Colorado is considering increasing bag limits on bears and/or lengthening the season. Good luck with that. Maybe they should consider repealing the ban and allowing baiting and hounding.

“The Post Independent reports higher numbers of bear-human conflicts has led to more relocation of the animal, but more relocations have led to less available locations for more relocations. According to the newspaper, Parks and Wildlife has relocated six bears and put down 17 this year in Management Area 17, which includes Glenwood Springs, Carbondale and most of Pitkin and Eagle counties.

Parks and Wildlife District Manager Dan Cacho told The Post Independent relocation gets complicated when that many incidents occur in one spot because officials want to move the bears “at least 100 miles away” but still need to keep them in Colorado.”<<<Read More>>>

Are Canadians bad at keeping records of bear attacks on humans? This recent article indicates that data provided by provinces are unreliable and can’t be trusted. What is interesting though is that because there appears to be some scrutiny about the accuracy of bear attack data, there exists more concern by more people because of an ever increasing number of bear/human encounters across North America; enough that Environment Yukon is now keeping an updated “Bear Incident Map.” And for those interested, there’s this study of accounts of black bear attacks on humans in North America from 1900 – 2009.

And always remember, if you encounter a bear (rare – snicker) make sure and “look big.” It’s a magic cure all.

The liars of the Humane Society of the United States and all supporters to end the Maine bear hunt say that bear encounters in places like Colorado have not increased since the state began protecting predators. Whoops! Someone forgot to tell this bear that broke into a Colorado home that happened to be the home of a competitive shooter; a teenage girl. Bang!

However, those “rare” bear encounters take us to Saskatchewan, Canada where a man, who was taking a walk IN TOWN, encountered a bear that chased him down the street. He should have looked that bear in the eye and then “looked big.”

But, hey! Wait! Is Connecticut starting to learn from reality? In a state crowded with people, so far this year there have been over 4,000 bear encounters with humans reported. One wildlife official was quoted as saying that bear encounters with humans, “happen from time to time.” Gasp! We’ve graduated from “rare” to “from time to time.” However a bear that wandered onto Bradley Field was shot and killed because of public safety with airplanes. I’m surprised that airplanes don’t “look big” enough to scare off a bear. How big does one have to look to ward off a bear?

Now we travel out West. You know more places where the Humane Society of the United States says after ending bear hunting and perpetually protecting predators, there are really no problems with bears. But are those Westerners “looking big” enough? On a beach at Lake Tahoe, a black bear taking a stroll along the beach was eventually killed because it was not using sunblock (joke just in case you haven’t been following along). The people on the beach got together and “looked big” and so the bear wandered over to a remote area of the beach to have some privacy. Bears don’t have a right to sun bathe and so was killed for it.

Maybe Florida isn’t ready for a bear hunting season but just as important Florida residents aren’t ready, or at least shouldn’t be ready, to be filled with useless and inaccurate information about bears, bear habits and nonsense about projected losses of millions of acres of habitat.

It’s very misleading to tell people that there would be no bear problems if humans would just stop feeding bears and secure their trash. This year there have been countless times when hungry bears busted out car windows, destroyed garage doors and knocked down front doors to houses looking for food.

This opinion piece is loaded with the typical idiotic nonsense we have all become accustomed to hearing and reading from human-hating predator protectors and those who despise hunting as a real and proven conservation tool.

In Nova Scotia, where officials claim auto collisions with bears are rare, more and more are happening every year. This year they say it is because of a baby bear boom. Must be those “millions of pounds” of junk food being dumped in the Maine forests.

Due to what appears to have been a faulty doorknob, a bear entered an Alaska home where the homeowners were inside. Police arrived and blasted the bear twice with a shotgun. The bear ran off and died.<<<Read More>>>

Ah, yes! The experts (cough, cough) say bear and human encounters are rare – rare as compared to avoiding mosquitoes in the dense northern forests in the springtime. Those of us in the know now realize that bear encounters are really not all that rare, and thus this leaves us wondering whether any advice the “experts” give us is worth a bear’s drool.

Regardless, here we go with another round of “rare” bear encounters.

1. A northern Minnesota man perhaps had his life saved when his pet dog was killed trying to fight off a black bear.

3. Even though bear encounters are “rare” say the experts, the same experts seem to have an awful lot of advice on how to avoid becoming a meal for a hungry black bear. One “expert” says to clap your hands and whistle (“You know how to whistle don’t you? You just put your lips together and blow!). And oh yeah, “throw things.” I suggest about a 180-grain hunk of lead traveling at about 2,500 feet per second. But something is missing from this advice. What could it be?

5. In Bangor, Maine, a jogger encounters a bear on a running path. HOWEVER, I can’t say much about someone out for a jog, is told there is a bear and cubs ahead and yet runs on up to “get a look.” Because it happened in Maine, it must be because of the “millions of pounds of donuts” hunters have piled up in the woods.

6. With all this “expert” advice on how to avoid encounters with bears and what to do if you do, when you have this information mastered, then think about what this guy (expert?) says when he tells readers that you have to understand bears, like Timothy Treadwell – who, incidentally was eaten alive by grizzly bears. He also says we should run away from bears instead of backing away slowly. He says pepper spray them or shoot them with a gun….you know, throw things at them.

A man eating breakfast in his cabin in Utah, watched as a black bear flipped the latch on his door and came into his house to eat a bucket of peanuts. He was not hurt…….neither was the man.

Perhaps if this man had taken the advice of officials in New York and around the country and “looked big,” “whistled,” or just made a bunch of noise, the bear would have been too damned scared to even attempt to open that door and get at a fresh bucket of peanuts.